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🇺🇦 We express our solidarity with those in Ukraine. How to help

Welcome to March in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London.

We are very excited to announce our new courses are open for applications for this September:

• MA Creative Writing
• BA Drama with Creative Writing
• BA Drama and History

We are also excited to relaunch:

• MA English Literature: Literature and Culture 1700-1900
• MA English Literature: Modern and Contemporary
• MA English Literature: Postcolonial and Global Literatures
• MA Theatre and Performance

Main image: Patricia Hamilton at Tate Britain’s Life Between Islands – Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now. Another image from the day is on display on third floor of ArtsOne and features Althea McNish‘s Tobago as a background for Patricia.

Open Events

Undergraduate Offer Holder Days

Our offer holder days are a great chance to meet students and staff from the course to get a feel for the course and inspiring community you could join.

DateTimeVirtual/on-campus
Saturday 12 March 10:30-15:30 In Person – Last few places
Wednesday 14 April 10:30-15:30 Virtual – Booking Now Live

Book for March & April

Postgraduate Open Evening

Thursday 24 March – In Person at QMUL Mile End and Online

Come to our friendly Master’s event in person and online to hear about what’s on offer for September 2022 entry and talk to us.

Book for the Master’s event

Events Listings

English Postgraduate Research Seminar – Spring Festival

The PGRS Committee is delighted to invite you to our final three online talks of the semester, featuring Oscar Wilde’s stories for children, the ‘cognitive ecologies’ of reconstructed theatres like Shakespeare’s Globe, and the original food, drink, and pamphlets of early modern theatre.
  17 March – Prof. Michele Mendelssohn (Oxford)

‘Nasty, Brutish Short Stories: Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince Reconsidered’Register

24 March – Prof. Evelyn Tribble (UConn)

Reconstructions and Reunions: Cognitive Ecologies, Space, and Skill   
Register

7 April – Prof. Tiffany Stern (Birmingham)

Product Placement and Marketing in the Early Modern Theatre
Register

Rediscover: queer + trans – Year 12 Study Day for Schools and Colleges

Wednesday 23 March 2022 – 2-5pm  – In Person
A-level/BTEC study day for year 12s to help bring in queer + trans ideas as tools to discover English literature, drama and creative writing in fresh ways.

Please register every individual attendee through this form or email us via sed-web@qmul.ac.uk for group bookings.

Book now

Sarah Knott on ‘Maternity, Care and Solitude’

Tuesday 5 April 2022, 17:00 – Online via Zoom
In the final paper in our 2021/22 seminar series, Sarah Knott from Indiana University discusses histories of motherhood and solitude.

Book now

Witnessing: Readings and Conversation, with Andrea Brady and Rachel Zolf

Wednesday 27 April – Online via Zoom with Live Captioning

Join us online for readings and conversations about witnessing. Featuring Andrea Brady and Rachel Zolf. Rachel Zolf, in No One’s Witness: A Monstrous Poetics (Duke University Press, 2021), ‘activates the last three lines of a poem by Jewish Nazi holocaust survivor Paul Celan—“No one / bears witness for the / witness”—to theorize the poetics and im/possibility of witnessing.’ Andrea Brady, in The Blue Split Compartments , ‘draws on chatroom logs, military policy manuals, pattern of life archives, and accounts by witnesses around the world to document the consequences of the perpetual and ‘everywhere war.’

Book now

Events from around QMUL

3 March

Ukraine – A critical test for the West?

8 March

International Women’s Day: Using the law to protect women’s rights & where the law can go further

10 March

Film Screening at QMUL: Ultraviolence + live Q&A about resistance to police violence

News

Models Required for Inclusive Fashion Show from Diaspora Speaks

Find out more & apply

Charlie Williams from QMUL’s Solitudes Project explores the history of the dropout.

Read the article

English alumna Olivia on London Ambulance Service, nursing and running a beauty blog.

Read Olivia’s story

Listen to the latest Craft podcast by Wasafiri Magazine 

Catch English television presenter, photographer and author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe Johny Pitts on the next episode of Craft Podcast launching very soon. Follow @craft_podcast on Twitter for episodes and updates.

Find out more

New videos

Lucretia McCarthy for LGBTQ+ History Month 2022

English Literature Graduate Simran Singh on her degree & working at Sky

Alumni Round Up

Hugo Aguirre (Drama) is a contestant on Sky Arts’ new series, The Big Design Challenge. This competition will see eight creatives battle different design challenges across five episodes to be crowned “Britain’s next design superstar”. Follow @hugoaguirre_design on Instagram. 

Conor Burke (Drama) is presenting his show Everything is Grand, and I’m Completely OK at The Hope Theatre from 6 March.

Edie Edmundson (Drama) is in Robert Icke’s puppet Animal Farm touring round the UK.

Figs in Wigs (Drama) are presenting their work Little Wimmin as part of WOW – Women of the World Festival on Sunday 13 March 2022.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala CBE (English MA) is Booker prize-winning novelist, short story writer and two-time Oscar winning screenwriter and is celebrated on Instagram here.

Open Calls for Students, Staff & Alumni

2022 is shaping up to be an amazing year of events. Take part in the following:

• A Season of Bangla Drama Deadline for receiving Expressions of Interest is 25 April 2022
• Being Human Festival Events wanted
• Mad Hearts: Arts and Mental Health – Creative responses QMUL Festival of Communities Stalls, Activities Wanted
• Totally Thames Open Call – General Open Call
• Tide Changers Programme £1000 funding for emerging artist aged 30 or under

Reminder: you can talk to our public engagement team or Rupert to talk through planning events or projects.

New blog posts from the Solitudes project including Akshi Singh and on Talking to yourself
Josh Cohen in Conversation with Akshi Singh

Vanessa Lim, Talking to Myself

Best wishes,

Rupert

Rupert Dannreuther

Marketing Manager
sed-web@qmul.ac.uk

Queen Mary University of London
#FutureQMUL

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Welcome to February in the School of English and Drama.

We’ve already had so much happen in January 2022 including:

• Celebrating our graduates at graduation ceremony for our class of 2020 and 2021.
• Our Head of English Suzanne Hobson talks about Modernism on Radio 4 – listen here.
• Our first in person offer holder day where we welcomed over 70 guests to see what makes English and Drama at Queen Mary so inclusive and special.

Support

We would like to take this opportunity in the year to remind students and staff them of support available inside and outside the college.

Find out about Support for Students and Staff

Main Image from: Danielle De Leon from our English class of 2021 and Founding Editor​​ & Digital Media Team Member at Wonderer Journal.

Open Events

Undergraduate Offer Holder Days

Our offer holder days are a great chance to meet students and staff from the course to get a feel for the course and inspiring community you could join.

Saturday 12 February 10:30-15:30 In Person – Limited availability

Saturday 13 March 10:30-15:30 In Person – Good availability

Wednesday 14 April 10:30-15:30 – Virtual – Booking opens soon

Book for March

Postgraduate Open Evening

Come to our friendly Master’s event to hear about what’s on offer for September 2022 entry and talk to us about:

Drama

MA Theatre and Performance

MSc Creative Arts and Mental Health

English

MA English Literature:

• MA English Literature
• MA English Literature: Literature and Culture 1700-1900
• MA English Literature: Modern and Contemporary
• MA English Literature: Postcolonial and Global Literatures

Book for March

Research Events

T.MUDD. A Performance-Lecture on Messianic Themes with Associate Professor Brandon Woolf (NYU)

Wednesday 9 February – Soft start at 18:30 GMT with a presentation starting at 19:00 GMT via Zoom 

Tickets are free but please RSVP on Zoom

Abstract:

For a few years now, I’ve been reading and re-reading six particular pages of the Babylonian Talmud, which confront some confounding questions of messianism. I’m not a scholar of Talmud; I really have no business digging around in this foundational tome of rabbinic Judaism. And yet, these six pages persist in their invitation – again and again – to consider catastrophe, caesura, mourning, and morning joe via dialogue, debate, parable, mathematical calculation, geopolitical commentary, conspiracy theory, and seemingly dadaist non-sequitur. T.MUDD is a performance-lecture with new music that moves back and forth between these varying Talmudic registers and modes of address in the hopes of moving us just a little bit closer to (or perhaps way further away from) answering the persistent questions: Just what are we waiting for? And what should we do while we wait – for the end without end?

Brandon Woolf is a theater artist and clinical associate professor at New York University, where he directs the Program in Dramatic Literature. www.brandonwoolfperformance.com

Book now

‘Vegetable monsters and curiosities’: Plant Horror in the Palm House at Kew

Thu 10 February 2022, 17:00 – Zoom

Dr Kate Teltscher

Completed in 1848, Kew’s Palm House was associated with both plant magnificence and plant monstrosity.  From the start, the Palm House attracted considerable attention from journalists and the popular scientific, educational and religious press. 

Book now

The White Review Presents: Art and Literature in Conversation

Thu 10 February 2022, 19:00 – Whitechapel Gallery

Head to Whitechapel Gallery for a discussion to celebrate the latest issue of leading arts and literature magazine The White Review.

Experimental writer Irenosen Okojie, author of the award-winning novel, Butterfly Fish, will be in conversation with editor Izabella Scott (QMUL).

Book now

Dyspraxic Approaches to Teaching Live Art in a ‘Neurodivergent’/ ‘Normodivergent’ classroom 

Mon 7 March – Online via Zoom with Live Captioning

a talk by Daniel Oliver and Sumita Majumdar 

In this session Daniel and Sumita will be reading from, and expanding on, their co-authored chapter ‘Dyspraxic Approaches to Teaching Live Art in a ‘Neurodivergent’/‘Normodivergent’ classroom’, published in Petronilla Whitfield’s edited collection Inclusivity and Equality in Performance Training: Teaching and Learning for Neuro and Physical Diversity (NY: Routledge, 2021). They will share their experiences, detailed in the chapter, of neurodivergent/normodivergent teaching and learning, and build on their argument that these experiences and approaches are ideal when working with Live Art and experimental performance practices. 

Book now

News

1. SED Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Student Initiative Fund Find out more & apply
2. Suzanne Hobson talks about Modernism on BBC Sounds Listen on BBC now
3. Congrats to Balraj and all our other students at #QMULGrad Discover our grad tips

BLOC – New Research a new Film & Drama Practice research facility at QMUL

The project will create an integrated suite of facilities that support our research into Film, Drama and associated post-production activities. 

 We’re calling it “BLOC” to speak to building blocks, the grid, connectivity.

One of our aims is to create the most accessible Cinema in a London University, that will make it inclusive for everyone, whether they require physical or neurodiverse support or not.

Find out more

Wasafiri Craft Podcast

We now have a dedicated page for Craft on the Wasafiri website! Go to http://wasafiri.org/article/podcast/… for all things Craft including full transcripts of every episode and exclusive bonus outtakes.

Listen to the latest episode with Daniel Mella here: https://t.co/EJqxTn4yTa

Phakama have a new project for 16-21 year olds this February: Our Stories

Rise Up is a FREE opportunity for young people aged 16- 21 to create, learn, collaborate and express themselves. This is a unique experience for up to ten young people, who will be led by Phakama’s Young Creatives, to take part in a one-week cross-arts project. Using different art forms such as drama, music, creative writing and movement, you will have the opportunity to create your own show and share it with a live audience at Graeae Theatre in East London. No previous arts experience necessary.

Apply to take part

Julie Rose Bower new projects in ASMR for 2022

In February, for Valentine’s Day, a dance film that Julie Rose has sound designed (dir. Jo Bannon for Candoco Dance Company) is going to have its international debut at Sadlers Wells Digital Stage. Candoco are a disability-inclusive dance company and she has written about my approach to creating a tactile sound design and cultivating an inclusive sound practice for Performance Research’s forthcoming issue ‘On Touch’. This is a very beautiful and erotic piece exploring relationships with objects. My sound design has an ASMR aesthetic and features innovative use of contact microphones.

Follow Julie Rose on Twitter

Souradeep Roy published in new Routledge Anthology

Souradeep Roy’s (PhD Drama, 2nd Year) essay, “Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay, Nandikar, and the World,” which was first published in South Asian Review (2020), was published in the anthology of essays Global South Asia: South Asian Literatures and the World (2022) published by Routledge.

Access the new book

If you have any news for our March edition, spot any errors or notice we missed anything please do let me know: sed-web@qmul.ac.uk.

Best wishes,

Rupert

Rupert Dannreuther

Marketing Manager
sed-web@qmul.ac.uk

Queen Mary University of London
#FutureQMUL

Sign up to our newsletter

Welcome to 2022 in the School of English and Drama.

We’re excited to welcome our students back to campus for our second semester later this month and to meet so many potential new students at our offer holder days and events.

January UCAS deadline for equal consideration is 26 January 2022. We would love to receive an application from you before this deadline. Please contact sed-admissions@qmul.ac.uk if you need help with undergraduate admissions.

PhD application deadline January 19 for QMUL and January 28 for LAHP. Please contact sed-research@qmul.ac.uk if you need any help with these.

Events

Undergraduate Offer Holder Days

Our offer holder days are a great chance to meet students and staff from the course to get a feel for the course and inspiring community you could join.

Date Time Virtual/on-campus

• Saturday 22 January 10:30-13:30 On campus
• Saturday 12 February 10:30-15:30 Hybrid
• Saturday 13 March 10:30-15:30 Hybrid
• Wednesday 14 April 10:30-15:30 Virtual

Email us about offer holder days

Seminar – Michael Rowland on ‘Sociable Bodies, Solitary Minds: Men and Belonging in Eighteenth-Century Culture’ – Solitudes Seminar on 25 Jan Online

Book here

News

Bangladesh at 50 Victory Day Concert

Watch the concert

2020-21 Graduation is coming on 20 Jan at Tobacco Dock in Wapping

Find out more

Bethany is Instagram creator in residence

Follow us on Instagram

Our 2021 Year in Review

Read it here

Martin Welton (Drama) featured issue of Ambiances Just published – co-edited by Chloé Déchery (Paris 8 Vincennes) and Martin Welton (QMUL), the second volume of a special issue on Staging Atmospheres in the journal Ambiances: The International Journal of Sensory Environment, Architecture and urban Space.

Read Staging Atmospheres: Theatre & the Atmospheric Turn – Volume 2

Tobi Poster-Su (Drama) writes on Sculpting China: Critical Puppetry and the Formation of Diasporic Identity for Critical Stages

The article explores the ways puppetry might resist and disrupt racial constructions of identity in Tobi Poster-Su’s performance as research project Chang and Eng and Me (and Me).

Read the article

Elizabethan England and the Islamic World

Award-winning writer and historian Professor Jerry Brotton (English) and journalist Shafi Musaddique explored Tudor links with the Islamic world with the British Library.

Links and Opportunities

Student Opportunity

I Am You Anthology Project – working with young people on the Equality Act

Happy new year and we hope you are well.  We are writing to you about an exciting upcoming student opportunity.  The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre (QMLAC) http://www.lac.qmul.ac.uk/ are bringing together an inter-disciplinary student working group to run an exciting project with 9 and 10 year old children.  The project will build on the current work of the QMLAC I Am You project (http://www.lac.qmul.ac.uk/clients/community-projects/i-am-you/) which runs workshops in local primary schools on the Equality Act. 

This opportunity will teach students about the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010, and support and empower them to write personal reflections (poems / stories etc.). These reflections will them be compiled into a hard copy anthology with a launch event in the spring where we will host a recital for the young people to present their work to their families.

We are looking to bring together a group of:

• 3 Law students
• 4 English students
• 3 Drama students
• 2 Marketing students

Students can be from any year of studies (post graduate or undergraduate) as long as they are committed, engaged and available for the entirety of the project. 

Together the team will be trained to design and deliver;

• a training video and document to launch the competition to local 9 and 10 year olds,
• a judging panel to select the best contributions to for the anthology,
• promote competition and the recital, and
• support with the organisation of the final event.

This will be a project led by the QMLAC as part of the Queen Mary Sketch initiative (https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sketch/).

The first compulsory meeting for this project will be held online from 3-5pm on the 19^th January where the team will come together and plan the project. 

How to get involved?

If you are interested in being involved in this unique interdisciplinary opportunity please send a CV and cover email explaining why you are interested to lac@qmul.ac.uk by Monday 17^th January at 10.00am. We will aim to let applicants know if they have been successful noon on the 18^th January.  Please be aware that the first session is compulsory and so we encourage all applying to ensure they are free 3-5pm on the 19^th January.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the QMLAC team at lac@qmul.ac.uk.

LAHP 2022/23 Collaborative Doctoral Award Projects Recruiting

Performance-based co-creation with young people as political activism: contextualising and disseminating the work of Fevered Sleep

Collaborative Doctoral Award in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London and Fevered Sleep

Primary academic supervisor: Kiera Vaclavik
Secondary academic supervisor: Maggie Inchley
Collaborative Partner lead contact: Louisa Borg-Costanzi Potts

Find out more

Disability and the Home: Space, Domesticity, and Identity in London, 1840-1945

Collaborative Doctoral Award in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of the Home

Primary academic supervisor: Matthew Rubery
Secondary academic supervisor: Alison Blunt
Collaborative Partner lead contact: Danielle Patten
Collaborative Partner supervisor: Rebecca Jacobs

If you have any listings for the next newsletter please do let me know: sed-web@qmul.ac.uk

Rupert

Rupert Dannreuther

sed-web@qmul.ac.uk

Queen Mary University of London
#FutureQMUL

Sign up to our newsletter

Welcome to our last newsletter in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London.

We’re moving to a new mailing system next month, so please sign up here to re confirm and make sure you’re on our new list.

Images from left to right: Patricia Hamilton (Admin Team) at Life Between Islands at Tate Britain, Wasafiri Issue 108:  House of Wisdom: Libraries and Literatures of Islam, Mojisola Adebayo (Drama) and image from Tamara Atkin discovery story (Guillaume kills a giant in an illumination from 13th and 14th century manuscripts of the ‘Chanson de Guillaume d’Orange.’ Photograph: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alam).

REDISCOVER: FEMINISM: Last chance to book for our year 12 English, Drama and Creative Writing event next Wednesday.
Sign up here

OFFER HOLDER DAYS: Our first offer holder day is happening on 15 December and we can’t wait to meet our applicants.

TIKTOK: We’re so happy with the response to our TikTok posts from our first student creator. Check out our latest post – snippets from student variety night Slappin Da Bass here.

Events

MASTER’S OPEN EVENTS

MA English Literature and MA Creative Writing Zoom Event
Tuesday 7 November 2021
1600-1700 UK Time

Sign up

Book Launch: Bad English: Literature, Multilingualism, and the Politics of Language in Contemporary Britain (2020) by Rachael Gilmour. A convivial conversation between Rachael, Nisha and Juliette will be followed by a reception.

Email to reserve a place

BANGLADESH@50 VICTORY DAY CONCERT

Come to Queen Mary’s Great Hall at the People’s Palace for a Victory Day concert featuring Naz & Bolly Flex, Mumzy, Nish, Khiyo, IMD, Iksy, Taal Torongo and DJ Osmani Soundz.

Book tickets

LISTINGS

‘We talked about solitude’: Modernist Female Authors, Solitude, and Affective Bonding
Melissa Alexander (University of Oxford)
Tuesday 7 Dec 2021, 5:00pm – Online via Zoom
Book here

History of Libraries Seminar: Rachel Eckersley on dissenting academy libraries
Tuesday 7 Dec 2021, 5.30pm – Online
Book here

News & Links

Mojisola Adebayo (Drama) has been shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award for Best New Play of the Year for ‘Family Tree‘. Family Tree is inspired by the life of Henrietta Lacks whose cells were unlawfully used in medical trials for hundreds of years.

Read more about the award | Read more about the play

Rehana Ahmed and Nadia Atia (English) are guest editors of the latest edition of Wasafiri Magazine titled: House of Wisdom: Libraries and Literatures of Islam.

Buy a copy

Students and staff can read online

Alumnus Tomiwa Owolade’s book has been acquired byAtlantic and W.F. Howes This is Not America: Why We Need a New Conversation about Race. Tom studied BA English Literature and graduated in 2018 and Nathalie Grey profiled him for Black History Month last month.

Read the profile

Tamara Atkin (English)‘s discovery of a lost fragment of lost 12th-century epic poem was featured in the Guardian.

Read the full article

Craft Podcast Over the last year, Wasafiri’s Publishing Director, Malachi McIntosh (with support by members of the Wasafiri team) has been hard at work designing and recording Craft – a literary podcast featuring a range of international writers, including Daniel Mella, Chen Chen, Bernadine Evaristo, and Raymond Antrobus. Craft removes the constraints of the interview form, allowing guests to explore their work and processes on their own terms, and creating an immersive and intimate experience for the listener. The first episode with Nina Mingya Powles launched last month. We are proud that Wasafiri Magazine is based at Queen Mary University of London.

Listen now on your favourite podcast platform

Solitudes Project podcast Spaces of Solitude wins Lovie Silver Award for the podcast episode ‘The Mind’ won Silver in Individual Episode category! The episode was produced by Natalie Steed, presented by Hetta Howes (PhD graduate) and curated by Akshi Singh.⠀Huge thanks to contributors Sarah Garfinkel, Denise Riley and Adam Philips.

You can listen here

The Distance Cure Hannah Zeavin discusses the role of distance in the history of mediated therapies with Solitudes researcher, Charlie Williams.

Read it here

Tiffany Watt-Smith (Drama)’s new book Bad Friend: A Love Story, a “necessary and timely” meditation on female friendship has been acquired by Faber & Faber.

Read more here

Sign up to our newsletter

Welcome to November in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London.

REDISCOVER: FEMINISM: We are hosting an exciting free study day event for year 12 students to take a fresh look at feminism to help with their studies.
Year 12 students and teachers can sign up early here

OFFER HOLDER DAYS: We will be hosting offer holder days for applicants who apply and get an offer from us.
Ask a question about your offer or applying

INSTAGRAM LIVE Q&A: Every Thursday at around 2pm we host a live Instagram Q&A. So far we have had a ball with Karina Lickorish Quinn, Michael Craske (and honey his pug!), Isabel Waidner and Martin Welton. Want to take part? Email us or DM on Instagram.

TIKTOK: We’re excited to launch our new social channel which we hope to give a platform to many students voices in the coming months.

Follow us on TikTok

Events

OPEN DAYS

3 ways to connect with us until our new events are announced…

1. Watch our recent events on demand:

Undergraduate Open Event

MA English Literature Event

MA Theatre and Performance Event

2. Book a 1-2-1 with Rupert to discuss the course you’re interested in.

3. Read our 21 Reasons to Apply before the UCAS Deadline

FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE THEATRE FESTIVAL


The Freedom & Independence Theatre Festival runs from 5-28 November 2021 and will comprise an intercultural programme marking the 50th anniversary of Bangladeshi independence. Activities will include 12 theatrical performances, exhibitions, curated talks and seminars. Queen Mary is a proud partner and one of the highlights on campus is:

Freedom and Independence: People Speak by British Bangladeshi Poetry Collective

A (bilingual) poetry-play event where audience members are invited to join BBPC poets on stage.

Get some highlights in our blog post
See the full programme

BEYOND HUMAN FESTIVAL

‘Projected Books for Veterans of the Second World War’
13 November 2021 | 2-4pm | Royal Hospital Chelsea

Join historian Matthew Rubery for a live demonstration of an invention from the Second World War that projected books onto the ceiling.

Book here

Stepney Words Fifty Years On
14 November 2021 | People’s Palace, QMUL Mile End

The remarkable story of 1971’s Stepney Words, with Chris Searle, Stepney Words poets, historians, activists and today’s young voices.

Book here

The Laboratory of Psychical Research
13-16 November | 4.30pm | Senate House
 The wooden panelled Court Room at Senate House will play host to a reimagining of the historic National Laboratory of Psychical Research 1925-1930 by the celebrated paranormal investigator Harry Price.

Book here
See more events from Queen Mary in our New Perspectives Series at Being Human

LISTINGS

Anna Harpin on ‘Being a Mess: Performance and The Tender Loneliness of Kim Noble’s You’re Not Alone’
9 November
In the second paper in the Solitudes project 2021/22 seminar series, Anna Harpin from the University of Warwick examines ‘being a mess’ as not only personal catastrophe but political, public event. Follow Pathologies of Solitude on Instagram

Film London Jarman Award Weekend 2021
14 November | Whitechapel Gallery Online

Nisha Ramayya (English/Creative Writing) will be reading poetry alongside a talk by Adham Faramwy one of the six artists shortlisted for the 2021 Film London Jarman Award. This weekend gives you the opportunity to view their films alongside a special live online programme that explores their different practices through talks and performances. 

Shane Boyle: “Waiting for Ships to Die”: Ever Given & Salvage Spectacles
Tuesday 16 November | Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
“This talk considers Ever Given within an extended history of salvage spectacles so as to consider the continuity of our logistical present with the empires of the past.”

Diaspora Speaks × Peach Magazine Creative Writing Workshop
16 November 2021 | 6-8 pm | St Benet’s Chaplaincy – QMUL Mile End
An amazing creative writing workshop is around the corner. A Diaspora Speaks x Peach Magazine collab. All welcome.
Sign up here

Working With Machines
17 November | Online
‘Are we just feeding machines our own biases as we “train” up living machines?’ An online discussion of the Living With Machines project at the Alan Turing Institute. Prof. Ruth Ahnert is Principal Investigator on the flagship Turing project ‘Living With Machines’, and a Professor of Literary History and Digital Humanities at Queen Mary University of London.

Follow us on Twitter

News & Links

Alumni Angles Podcast featuring FAB Website Editor, Editorial Assistant at Faber & Faber, and the voice of the world’s first digital model, Ama Badu (English BA, 2018), is joined by Founder of The History Hotline podcast and Oral History and Project Officer at Wesley’s Chapel, Deanna Lyn Cook (English and History BA, 2018).

Watch here | Listen here

Dominic Johnson (Drama) was commissioned to write an essay to accompany Cassils’s solo exhibition at HOME in Manchester. Read his essay and those of our friends here: Cassils – Who By Fire by Dominic JohnsonThe Statuesque in the Headlights by Jay BernardShowstopper by Libro Levi BridgemanCassils Cuts: A Traditional Sculpture: Time Lapse (Front), 2011 (detail) Courtesy of the artist

Madeleine Levy (English and Drama graduate 2011) Madeleine talks about her new book, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Cat: Surviving the education system with Asperger’s, where she and others share their experiences of navigating the education system with autism. Madeleine also talks about why she started her own theatre company for people with autism and the important lessons she learned and shared during her time at university.

Read her alumni profile here

Pathologies of Solitude Project Update

Artist-in-residence, the award-winning illustrator Sophie Burrows, has created a series of artworks in response to research stemming from our project. An online exhibition of her work, as well as sketchbooks and notes on the process, can be found here.

The Astronaut Alone In our latest blog, researcher Jeffrey Mathias writes about NASA’s isolation chamber, used to put astronauts to the test in the 1950s. Read the post

kitt price (English) and Aleksander Kolkowski recreate the experience of ‘thinking-in’, when thousands of listeners engaged in radio telepathy experiments during the 1920s and 30s on Resonance FM. Listen here

Nisha Ramayya (English/Creative Writing) and Akshi Singh Wellcome-funded project on experiences of solitude in relation to race and migration. his project is part of the bigger Pathologies of Solitude project led by Barbara Taylor. With poet Rachel Long and coordinator Tasha Pick, the team has organised a series of creative writing workshops in association with Hackney Migrant Centre and Praxis, featuring inspiring sessions on names, spaces for sleeping, and collective processes of recollection & documentation.

Nisha will also be performing as part of an encounter between poetry and music Treble Heaven at Café Oto on 30 November with sonic dramaturg MJ Harding. Find out more

Morag Shiach (English/Director, Network: QMUL Centre for the Creative and Cultural Economy) has published a key report with the British Council on Mapping the Creative Economy around the Durga Puja.

Read more

Follow us on Instagram for the latest

Whilst we try our hardest to make sure listings are accurate, we recommend contacting the event organiser or registering before attending any events.

Mistakes and omissions can be made with this volume of information and we apologise for these.

If you have any news or events for our final newsletter in 2021 please reply to this email.

Warm regards

Rupert

Rupert Dannreuther
Marketing Manager

School of English and Drama
Queen Mary University of London

Twitter | Instagram | Youtube
sed-web@qmul.ac.uk

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UNDERGRADUATE OPEN DAY ON SATURDAY We have 4 exciting tasters including on Romeo and Juliet, Creative Writing, Protest and Showbusiness. Plus we have subject introductions on English and Drama to give you the   Book here | See our programme

DRAMA #2, CREATIVE WRITING #25 AND ENGLISH TOP 25 IN UK 

The School of English and Drama has been named #2 for Drama, #6 for Creative Writing and #25 for English in the latest Times Good University Guide 2022. The Head of School, Scott McCracken said:“The School of English and Drama at Queen Mary is internationally recognised for its departments of Drama, Creative Writing, and English Literature. We are delighted to see this reflected in the departments’ top scores in the Times Good University Guide.“

ARTSONE – ENHANCING FACILITIES

 Queen Mary University of London has committed to a major investment aimed at improving and enhancing our arts and culture facilities. The new facilities will ensure that we can continue to support teaching and research that is both world leading, inclusive and accessible to the communities we work with. The enhanced facilities, for which accessibility has been a driving principle — will include:A new cinema designed by leading architects McFarland-Latter, including the latest in surround-sound and projection technologies; The instalment of new digital technologies for motion capture and ambisonic playback in Rehearsal Room 3;A new production suite adjacent to Rehearsal Room 3 including a fully sound-proofed recording booth, and control facilities for video and audio production;Improved lighting, sound and seating in Room G.34 enabling flexible use as a seminar room, gallery or installation studio;

Read more

Events

This Conjuncture: After Brexit, Corbyn and Covid with Anthony Barnett, Ellie Mae O’Hagan, and Scott McCracken

Monday 4 October 2021 

Join Anthony Barnett, Ellie Mae O’Hagan and Scott McCracken to unpick the power relations and thematics at work in our current moment, from Brexit and the ascent of nationalist populism, to the devastating experience of defeat in the 2019 general election, to the implications of the pandemic for the radical left.

Book tickets

Detritus: what has been worn away

Saturday 23 October 2021

Drama graduate Dani Harvey is producing a one day Live Art event  that will feature durational, interactive, momentary, and material-based artworks, that challenge what performance can and should be in gallery spaces. Lots of Drama alumni are taking part.

Book tickets

The origins of Jewish immigration social history in Manchester and London

Thursday 14 October 2021, 6.30pm – 8.30pm, online 

An illustrated talk and conversation discussing the origins of Jewish immigrant oral history from the 1970s onwards in Manchester and London featuring our very own Nadia Valman (English) 

Book tickets

Anna Maguire on ‘Hostile Environments: Refugees, Asylum Seekers and the Politics of Loneliness’

Tuesday 26 October 2021 In the first paper in our 2021/22 seminar series, Anna Maguire from Queen Mary, University of London explores experiences of refugee isolation and loneliness as a weapon of the state.

Book tickets

The Commune at 150: a symposium

Tuesday 2 November 2021

We celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the Paris Commune with an in-person symposium. The event brings together scholars specialising in literature, the visual arts, material culture, political theory, and more, for an interdisciplinary exploration of the Commune’s ongoing political and cultural significance. The conference also hopes to reinvigorate wider cross-disciplinary debates about the generative logic of insurrectionary events as well as about the formation of radical traditions.

Book tickets

News

Alumni Profile: Performer, Creative Director and Union Leader, José Bencosme Zayas

Theatre and Performance MA ’18

In his profile, José talks about the significance of London’s theatre scene to his growth as a performer, how the Drama department at Queen Mary welcomed and supported him throughout his studies, and about the work he is currently doing to improve working conditions for theatre artists at home in the Dominican Republic. 

Read the full interview

Expeditions Series

Emeritus Professor Susheila Nasta has made a series of must-watch short talks on:

• The history of Black and Asian British writing
• Caribbean writers and new representations of London
• The Indian presence in Bloomsbury and the rise of modernity

Susheila also hosted a walk around Bloomsbury around Asian spectacles.

You can listen here

Zara Dinnen in conversation

As part of the AHRC funded network Pause for Thought (University of Lincoln and University of Warwick) Zara Dinnen (English) conversation with Niall Docherty (researcher at Microsoft) about how “the user” is a major figure in society today. The conversation has been published online here. Pause for Thought is an interdisciplinary network of principally UK-based scholars, writers, artists, and media practitioners who are invested in the future of media literacy, and modes of analysis, creative practices, and teaching strategies appropriate for our rapidly shifting media landscape.

Read the post

Antigone

Ed Nesbit (QMUL composer-in-residence) has written an Antigone, in which various QMUL students have been involved (as the chorus). Abbie Jukes (English), Rachel Bryant-Davies (Comp. Lit), and Katie Fleming discussed Antigone with Ed, and this ‘pre-concert’ talk is going live this Friday 1st October at 17.00 via the link below.

Watch the premiere

News Digest

Michael Hughes has written a new piece of short fiction, ‘Marcel Marceau’, in a forthcoming anthology, The New Frontier; Reflections from the Irish Border, published October 15th from New Island Books.

https://www.newisland.ie/nonfiction/the-new-frontier

Pathologies of Solitude

• The project has released it’s latest blog post From Solitude to Loneliness: Preaching and Meditating on Marriage and Widowhood in Early Modern Britain by Hannah Yip and Thomas Clifton
• New Instagram Account @solitude_qmul

PEACH OPEN SUBMISSIONS FOR NEW ISSUE

🦋PASSAGES🦋 ‘After a difficult period of time, this new academic year will hopefully be one of positive change and transition, and we want our first print run to reflect that. By making ‘passages’ the theme of our first print run, we are hoping it will provide an outlet to help aid the healing process this next year will bring. PEACH is open for submissions NOW. They take submissions from students for poetry, prose, short story, comics, illustration, paintings, collage, photography (including photographs of 3D art forms such as sculpture, embroidery, textile art, ect.). Deadline is the 13 October and you can send your submissions to the team at peachmagazine@qmsu.org.’

Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize Shortlist Announced

The shortlisted writers, from eight countries across four continents, are:  

Fiction judged by Hirsh Sawhney 

Kate Carne  for ‘First to Go’ | Riddhi Dastidar for ‘Fuck Marry Kill’  | Bhavika Govil for ‘Eggs keep falling from the fourth floor’ | Mónica Ibarra Parle for ‘The Claws Come First’ | Anam Raheem for ‘Tessellation’ 

Life Writingjudged by Christie Watson | Anne O’Brien for ‘Swallow’ | Dalbinder Kular for ‘The Prediction’ | Usha Rungoo for ‘The Song of Life’ | Damion Spencer for ‘Death Comes in Threes’ | Shamini Sriskandarajah for ‘Hazel and Fiver’ 

Poetry judged by Tishani Doshi 

Jordan Hamel for ‘If you read this backwards blood becomes wine’ | Asmaa Jama for ‘Autopsy’ | Shereen Leanne for ‘almost-shahrazad: part one’ | Dipanjali Roy for ‘सफ़रनामा / safarnama’ | Dorsía Smith Silva ‘Ghost Talker Poem’ 

The winners will be announced on 14 October at an event. 

Read more here

Wasafiri Magazine Craft – New Podcast & Transcriber Opportunity for Students

Wasafiri (based at QMUL) is looking for a transcriber to join the Wasafiri team, to transcribe episodes of our new podcast on international literature, Craft. Email a.nishat@qmul.ac.uk for more information. 

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We hope we can inspire you with what’s happening in April in the School of English and Drama.

To get more regular updates please follow us on:
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BOOK NOW FOR THE ANNUAL CATHERINE SILVERSTONE LECTURE ON 26 MAY:

Professor Joshua Chambers-Letson (Northwestern University) will present a lecture called: “Love Will Never Do: Black and Brown Love in a Queer Rhythm Nation”.

Book Here (open to all, free & online)

LAST CALL: PAID OPPORTUNITY FOR BLACK STUDENTS: The Mending Room: We’re looking for four students who share a Black British, Caribbean or African Heritage, to support and document a unique project – part of 81 Acts of Exuberant Defiance (humanifesto pictured above) – with the legendary theatre arts activist Tony Cealy.

Led by Tony, you will work over ten Saturday mornings starting 10 April and culminating in a share event on 5 June. If you are in Second/Third Year or are a postgraduate, please contact Ali Campbell (a.m.campbell@qmul.ac.uk) ASAP to get involved, or see this blog post.

Events

2021 UNDERGRADUATE OFFER HOLDER DAY
LAST ONE OF THE YEAR

14 April: Email sed-admissions@qmul.ac.uk for an invite.

TASTERS FOR YEAR 12/13 STUDENTS & TEACHERS

• 14/04: Creative Writing Year 12/13 Taster with Michael Hughes
• 14/04: Drama Yr 12/13 Taster: Independent Performance Making with Lois Weaver

RESEARCH SEMINARS

English Postgraduate Research Seminar
Dr Clare Pettitt (King’s College London) on ‘The Inter-National Novel in 1848’. 
8 April – Free – Online on Zoom
Book Here

Drama QUORUM Seminar
Christa Holka on documenting the lives and processes of her intimate and extended intersectional queer communities.
22 April – Free – Online via Zoom
Book Here

QUEEN MARY CONVERSATIONS


Queen Mary Conversations Week
9-16 April – Free – Online

A week-long series of events that talk about everything from boxing to housework, data science to teeth, childcare to synaesthesia, engineering to zombies. 

Find Out More and Book

LIVE ART LECTURE

2nd Annual Live Art Lecture (LADA/QMUL) by Morgan Quaintance
21 April – Free – Online
  A lecture by Morgan Quaintance: “Only Connect: Affect and Transcendence After Isolation”, in association with MA Live Art.
Book Here

NISHA RAMAYYA APPEARANCES

Nisha Ramayya (English/Creative Writing) is taking part in lots of events this month: Wednesday 7 April – Nisha is giving a keynote talk on multivocal poetics at ‘Un/crossing language cracks: exophonic practices and realities’, organised by the University of Montreal. Also Wednesday 7 April – Nisha is participating on a roundtable on ‘radical inclusivity, diaspora, and poetry’, hosted by Camden Arts Centre in collaboration with The 87 Press. More infoThursday 8 April – Nisha is presenting new work on mathematical romance, underwater listening, and speculative frequencies at the ‘audiograft festival of experimental music and sound art’. More infoFor more events happening across the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences see the HSS events newsletter.

News & Links

Fatima Abukar (English student) has launched her debut poetry collection Don’t Be Dramatic, Light Her Up, and it’s now available on Amazon. Find out more on Fatima’s Instagram

ALUMNI PROFILES

Celebrating 50 years of Bangladeshi Independence – Alumni story
In this special blog post, alumna Sabiya Khatun (English BA, 2011) talks about a new exhibition in collaboration with Tower Hamlets Archives and the National Portrait Gallery, Bangladesh 50, which will explore the impact of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, and the experience of the Bangladeshi community, many of whom came to settle in Tower Hamlets. In the post, Sabiya talks about how getting involved with the exhibition as a Citizen Researcher resonated with the topics she was interested in during her degree, and why members of the Queen Mary community should go and see it.

Costanza Casati In this profile, writer and screenwriter Costanza Casati (English and Film Studies BA, 2017) talks about her debut novel, The President Show, which follows Iris, a nineteen-year-old thief who is captured and forced to take part in the state-run President Show, a reality programme where ‘Lovers’ have to entertain politicians in a bid to win their freedom. Described as Vox meets The Hunger Games, The President Show is a story of resilience, abuse, betrayal and hope. Costanza also shares details of her “bookstagram” page @youngpeopleread, where she interviews acclaimed debut writers.
Read the profile.

Miranda Burns In this profile, Radio Presenter at Capital and Capital South Coast and Ambassador for Endometriosis UK, Miranda Burns (Drama BA, 2015), reflects on how her weekly slot on QMSU’s Quest Radio allowed her to develop the skills and confidence needed for her successful career in radio, on some of her career highlights to date and how she has had to adapt her shows in response to the pandemic, and shares how she uses her social media as a safe space to talk about women’s health and her own infertility struggles. Read the profile.

Matt Rubery (English)’s essay Bottled Authors: The predigital dream of the audiobook is published in Cabinet Magazine. Read the essay

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Events

TASTERS FOR YEAR 12/13 STUDENTS & TEACHERS

24/03: Drama Year 12/13 Taster – Writing Now: Caryl Churchill with Jen Harvie

24/03: English Yr 12/13 Taster: 20th Century Cultural Renaissance w/ Morag Shiach

14/04: Drama Yr 12/13 Taster: Independent Performance Making with Lois Weaver

FEMINIST READING GROUP

The next LAHP Feminist Reading Group is on the 30 March from 5-6:30pm where we will be discussing Audre Lorde’s ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’.

Download flyer | Sign up

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

Colloquium: Religion and Victorian Popular Literature and Culture
6-8 May, Online, Free

Registration is now open for both a standalone keynote paper by Anne-Marie Beller and Kerry Featherstone, titled ‘“No greater spiritual beauty than fanaticism”: Women Travellers’ Encounters with Islam in the Nineteenth Century’ (Thursday 6 May) and a colloquium of six themed discussion panels on the expression and representation of religion in nineteenth-century popular culture texts of all kinds. (Friday 7 and Saturday 8 May). The events are free but registration is required. Thanks to Claire Stainthorp (English) for sharing this.

Full programme and registration details here

SOLITUDES SEMINAR

Medieval Solitude in Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife
30 March – 5pm (online) – Online, Free
  SED alumna Hetta Howes will be speaking at the Solitudes Past and Present seminar about loneliness, solitude and transformative natural spaces in a contemporary re-telling of Beowulf. All are welcome but booking is required here.

News & Links

Jerry Brotton (English) launches his new BBC series Blood and Bronze. ‘Blood and Bronze’ is the story of Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), one of the Italian Renaissance’s most controversial yet frequently overlooked artists, a man who wrote one of the most dramatic autobiographies in art history and lived and worked in the greatest courts and cities in Italy and France, from Florence, Rome, Mantua and Paris to Fontainebleau. He was a goldsmith; sculptor; painter; poet; soldier; musician; thief, priest and murderer.

Asia Khatun (English with Creative Writing Alumna) is editor of Thawra, an online literary magazine that provides a platform for minority creatives from budding short story authors to critical academic writers.

Read it here

Michael Mckinnie (Drama) Michael’s new book Theatre in Market Economies is published by Cambridge University Press. The book explores the complex relationship between theatre and the market economy since the 1990s. Bringing together research from the arts and social sciences, the book proposes that theatre has increasingly taken up the mission of the ‘mixed economy’ by seeking to combine economic efficiency with social security while promoting liberal democracy.

Susheila Nasta (English) is featured on the Penguin podcast on Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners.

Listen here on Apple Podcasts

Nisha Ramayya (English/Creative Writing) has joined the Ledbury Poetry Critics programme as a mentor. Mentors are pictured above. It is a programme to encourage diversity in poetry reviewing culture aimed at emerging critical voices.

She has also published an essay-in-progress. Listening to shadows skoosh in the ‘Sonic Continuum’ issue of The Contemporary Journal (hosted by Nottingham Contemporary). The piece is creative-critical and focusses on soundwalks, sci fi, and submarine cables.

Margaret Reynolds’ (English) new book about motherhood and adoption: The Wild Track: Adoption, Mothering, Belonging has been widely featured across the media and links to the coverage available online are below. We interviewed Professor Reynolds for our blog here to find out more about what the book’s about.

The Guardian (feature) | The Telegraph (feature) | Monocle Radio (Radio Special)

Izabella Scott (English PhD) who is doing avPhD on gender identity and the law with us is the new editor-in-chief of The White Review.

Devina Vassileva (English and Drama student)’s film FriDgid has won multiple awards across Europe and was screened by PEACH magazine on 4 March.

Read more about Devina | Watch the film

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Quick updates from us:

RESEARCH SEMINARS:
4 Feb English Postgraduate Research Seminar: Nadia Atia

Representing Iraq from Afar: Muhsin al-Ramli’s Scattered Crumbs

18 Feb QUORUM Drama: Lola Olufemi  (Writer of Feminist Interrupted – picture from seminar flyer above left)
Imaginative-Revoluntionary Potential: how, what, where

VOTE ONLINE TO SUPPORT ALUMNA THEATRE SHOW: Fraciska Éry has been nominated for an award for her Hamlet production. Vote to help her win.

WHAT WE’RE READING: We’re publishing an LGBT+ History Month special of our new column What We’re Reading. Be sure to contribute by recommending a book.

THE POWER OF POETRY: Read poetry by our students as we are inspired to celebrate the medium after hearing Amanda Gorman’s powerful work.

STAY CONNECTED: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook / Youtube

Online Events

OFFER HOLDER INTERVIEW DAY
Sat 13 Feb, Online
We have our next opportunity in January for our 2021 entry offer holders to hear an overview of their course, meet a member of staff for an interview and do a taster session.
Email us for information

TASTERS FOR YEAR 12/13 STUDENTS & TEACHERS
We’ve just launched 2 new tasters on Sat 13 Feb:

Drama Year 12/13 Taster: Theatre & The Supernatural

English Yr 12/13 Taster: Contemporary Middle Eastern Writing

LISTINGS

Public Space and the Geography of Loneliness
4 Feb, Online Our very own Matthew Ingleby will speak on Public Space and the Geography of Loneliness is the first event in our series of The English Association’s special interest group on Loneliness and Technology.

PEACH Creative Workshop
9 Feb, Online

“In honour of #lgbtqhistorymonth, we have decided to theme our first creative workshop of 2021  on love! The prompts for this workshop will be shaped around the works of queer writers and artists, using their pieces as inspiration for creative creation”.

Diaspora Speaks – February Events
From 10 Feb, Online

Check out the Instagram for all the details

POETRY OPEN MIC NIGHT
10 Feb, Online

A night organised by our very own student Jasmine Rothon that is open to everyone – beginners and pros! Reading and performing original work and covers of poems we love. Do a reading or just watch.

Sign up here

Book Launch: The Network Turn: Changing Perspectives in the Humanities
on 11 Feb at 4pm GMT

Celebrate the launch of Ruth Ahnert’s co-authored book with a conversation hosted by Jo Guldi and Zoe le Blanc on Zoom.

You can register here

Chang and Eng and Me (And Me)
16 Feb, onlineA short performance by PhD student Tobi Poster-Su for puppets in 3 acts followed by a post-show discussion.More information and tickets

Pathologies of Solitude Seminar Series
From 16 Feb, Online

The series continues online this term, with an exciting line up of speakers from literary scholars and historians to neuroscientists. The seminars take place on Tuesdays at 5pm (UK time). All are welcome but booking is required. You can see the full line-up of speakers here and register for attendance here.

Wasafiri Writing Workshops
Various Dates from February-April 2021

• Poetry Workshop: Writing across Languages for Chinese Poets (2 hours) 
• Prose-writing Workshop: Human Geography (2 hours)
• Poetry Workshop: Writing across Languages (2 hours)
• Writing through Covid-19: What is Your Story? How Will You Tell It? 

Find out more here

News & Links

Alumni Profiles:

• Lucy Dear (Drama BA, 2006), Applied Theatre Practitioner, Director and Community Producer.
• Evie Lewis (English Literature MA), PhD Researcher.
• Annabelle Sami (English Literature MA), Children’s Author.

Bechdel Theatre co-run by Drama graduate Pippa Sa has received Arts Council funding to help develop the pioneering platform from a 2-person passion-project into a sustainable, equitable company, supporting, amplifying & connecting women, trans & non-binary people who work in & care about theatre & live performance.

Rosie Dastgir (English) has a short story in an anthology of fiction and non fiction and recipes called Desi Delicacies: Food Writing from Muslim South Asia – about south Asian Muslim foodways – edited by Professor Claire Chambers at York University and just published by Picador India.  Her story is called A Brief History of the Carrot – !

Figs in Wigs (Drama alumni) publish a new printed version of their Little Wimmin through Salamander Street.

Buy it here

Rachel Gregory Fox (English)’s co-edited book Post-Millennial Palestine – Literature, Memory, Resistance has been published by Oxford University Press.

Quest Radio and The Museum of London project saw two groups of QM students listening back to recordings of London in the past.

Very exciting news is that the group that explored recordings from London’s LGBTQ+ Club Scene is going to be included in Museum of London’s online content for LGBT History Month!

Students in the LGBT research group include Eve Bolton, Kirsten Johnson, Georgia Wood and Keir McEwan.

Martin O’Brien (Drama) is interviewed for Afternoon Deelight podcast  by Jordy Deelight. He says ‘it was brilliant to talk about Cystic Fibrosis and my work with someone else with it. We dig into early performance work in Poland, illness, Bob and Sheree, and survival.’

Listen here

Martin has just launched a project with Shabnam Shabazi and Joseph Morgan Schofield. It’s The Sunday Skool for Misfits, Experimenters, and Dissenters. It will be a free 12 week course, every Sunday for artists in the early part of their practice: The Sunday Skool – VSSL studio (vssl-studio.org)

Susheila Nasta (English/Wasafiri Magazine) will be one fo the judges for the David Cohen Prize for a full life’s work only awarded every two years. Fellow judges include: Hermione Lee (Chair), Reeta Chakrabarti (BBC), Peter Kemp (The Times lead fiction critic) and Maura Dooley (poet, Prof at Goldsmith’s, previous Director of Southbank Literature). Previous winners of this illustrious include: Edna O’Brien, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Hilary Mantel, David Holroyd, Julian Barnes, Tony Harrison, Seamus Heaney, VS Naipaul. Read more here

Matthew Rubery (English) writes about how maintaining a critical distance with books might not be around for long on Public Books:

“Scholars have been conditioned to respond to talk of likes and dislikes with embarrassment, if not outright contempt. But the facade of critical detachment may be on the way out,”

Read the article here

People’s Palace Projects (Based at QMUL) has been featured in a UKRI Impact Case Study here.

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Happy New Year 2021

We wish you a safe and supported 2021. We’re here to help if you need us this year and would love to hear from you.

Quick updates from us:

UCAS DEADLINE EXTENSION: Undergraduate applicants for September 2021 entry now have until 29 January to apply. Watch our IG Live or ask a question.

7 DAY GRACE PERIOD: The School has agreed a 7-day grace period for all SED assignments due in January 2021. Details here

HOW TO CONTACT US:  Our physical office is currently closed but we are available to contact via these methods including live chat.

WASAFIRI MAGAZINE: Psst. exciting events are coming very soon so please do sign up to their newsletter via the link in the top right corner of the website.

STAY CONNECTED: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook / Youtube

Pictured: Wonderer Literary Journal, Romeo & Juliet featuring student Emily Redpath, Decolonising Sloane’s herbarium and our latest Instagram Live.

Online Events

OFFER HOLDER INTERVIEW DAY
Wednesday 20 January 2021

We have our next opportunity in January for our 2021 entry offer holders to hear an overview of their course, meet a member of staff for an interview and do a taster session.

Email us for information


POSTGRADUATE OPEN EVENTS

We have two online open events planned for the following courses:

MA English Literature – 3 Feb – 5-6pm UK Time
MSc Creative Arts and Mental Health – 3 Feb – 6.30-8pm UK Time

Sign up here to get invited

LISTINGS

Welcome to The Last Breath Society: Mortality, Care, and Solidarity in Zombie Time
Thursday 14 January 2021 6.30pm-8.15pm on Zoom

Our very own Martin O’Brien will talk about his practice and research in relation to ideas of care, community, and solidarity in times of illness. He will discuss his notion of Zombie Time, or the temporal experience of living on longer than expected, as a way of understanding mortality and chronic illness.

Get tickets

Power to the People – a digital festival by Phakama
Sunday 17 January 2021

Join Project Phakama (arts organisation based at QMUL) on Sunday 17th January 2021 for Project Phakama’s very first Digital Festival! To kick off Phakama’s 25th birthday celebrations they’ll be hosting a day’s festival called Power to the people, exploring the theme of ‘resistance‘.

Over the course of a day participants will come together to explore the things we are resisting. You’ll be able to choose from a range of workshops exploring movement, art therapy, creative writing and photography, sharing your ideas and building a small piece of performance to showcase to the group.Come along to revel in Phakama’s brilliant philosophy and people, feel inspired and explore something new.

Book a free ticket here

News & Links

AHRC LAHP Collaborative Doctoral Award: ‘Decolonising the Sloane Herbarium’

Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the Natural History Museum (NHM) are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded doctoral grant from October 2021.

This studentship is funded for 3.5 years full time (or part-time equivalent). The project will investigate provenance information for the botanical specimens in the Sloane Herbarium, a foundation collection of NHM, to re-imagine our understanding of its global and imperial dimensions.

Julie Rose Bower (Drama) has been commissioned by Victoria & Albert Museum to make ASMR videos. These will be released throughout this first quarter of 2021 and she hopes they will provide some stress relief deep in the cloister of the archive.

The last films were featured in Elephant magazine and described Julie Rose as one of the artists you need to know ‘carving out space to reflect on the world today’: https://elephant.art/these-are-the-artists-you-need-to-know-05042020/

Feather Pen Submissions Open

Feather Pen Blog is a creative writing platform managed by SED student Aysel Dilara Kasap that welcomes any type of writing and writers from all backgrounds. Our mission is to offer a creative space for all writers and aspiring writers to unleash their creativity. We want to help fellow writers to share their work, in this age in which rejections are more common than acceptance.

We’re open for submissions for all of our categories which include fiction (short stories and scripts), poetry and lifestyle (includes most kinds of non-fiction from articles, book reviews, film reviews, personal blog entries to travel accounts to anything you want to share). We especially encourage submissions for the fiction section. We’re also open to discuss any column ideas. Send your submissions or pitches to featherpen-blog@hotmail.com.

Vanessa Damilola Macaulay (Drama) Photography and memory, ritual and writing come together in Vanessa Damilola Macaulay’s inquiry into racialised experiences of breath and breathlessness, from violent anti-blackness to Fanon’s revolution.

Read it here

Elliot Morsia (English Alumnus) has published a ground-breaking new study of D. H. Lawrence with Bloomsbury Academic  Exploring draft manuscripts, alternative texts and publishers’ typescripts, The Many Drafts of D. H. Lawrence reveals new insights into the writings and writing practices of one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Focusing on the most productive years of Lawrence’s writing life, between 1909 and 1926 – a time that saw the writing of major novels such as Women in Love and the controversial The Plumed Serpent, as well as his first major short story collection – this book is the first to apply analytical methods from the field of genetic criticism to the archives of this canonical modernist author.

The book unearths and re-evaluates a variety of themes including the body, selfhood, the sublime, trauma, death, depression, and endings, and includes original transcriptions as well as reproductions from the manuscripts themselves. By charting Lawrence’s writing processes, the book also highlights how the very distinction between ‘process’ and ‘product’ became a central theme in his work. 

Read more and order here
Follow Elliott on Twitter: @EMorsia

Nineteenth-Century Religion, Literature and Society: Disbelief and New Beliefs, edited by Clare Stainthorp (a new Leverhulme ECF in the School of English and Drama) and Naomi Hetherington was published in December as part of a four-volume Routledge resource. The volume explores the transformation of the religious landscape of Britain and its imperial territories during the 1800s as shaped by Bible criticism, science, esotericism, comparative religion, and freethought. It introduces and makes accessible diverse primary sources, from novels and poetry to sermons and pamphlets.

Emily Redpath (Drama alumna) is starring in a socially distanced and cleverly filmed version Romeo & Juliet and highlighted by the Guardian’s Chris Wiegand.⁠

Read the article in the Guardian

Tudor Networks of Power Led by Ruth Ahnert (English).

Tudor Networks works in a similar way to platforms such as Google Maps. It offers to possibility for users to view almost 100 years of history from a macro perspective. Just like Google Maps might reveal streets that had never been mapped before, this platform reveals hidden histories and network connections that were previously unknown.

Read more

Martin Welton (Drama) writes the intro and edits the publication of the first of a two-part special issue of Ambianceson Staging Atmospheres co-edited with Chloé Déchery.

Read here

WONDERER (SED Student Run Literary Journal) has launched it’s first issue and includes incredible examples of our students’ workincluding work on consciousness and race, South African fiction, gender displacement and much more fascinating lockdown reading.

Read it online here

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Happy Holidays and Good Riddance to 2020

A few quick-fire updates from us:

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES – 3 DECEMBER: We are delighted to hear thatAccessibility Consultant, Journalist and Speaker, Emily Rose Yates (English BA, 2013), was recently listed among the Shaw Trust’s Power 100, an annual publication containing the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK. 

COLLEGE CLOSURE DAYS: Queen Mary is closed from 18 December 2020-4 January 2021. If you need support please get in touch before this starts.

SEMESTER 2 DATES: 25 January -16 April 2021 / Bank holidays: 2 and 5 April 2021.

STAY CONNECTED: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook / Youtube

LEVERHULME & PhD DEADLINES: 2021 Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship scheme and PhD Studentships information on our website.

Online Events

STUDENT-RUN OPEN EVENING FOR 2021 APPLICANTS

Friday 11 December 2020, 3.30 – 6.30pm (GMT)

You will also get the chance to take part in live subject panel sessions with current students, which will include a Q&A where you can ask questions about your subject of interest. The event will close with our semi-live digital tour, where you will be able to explore our Mile End campus and take part in a text Q&A session to find out more about living and studying at Queen Mary.

Book online


TASTER EVENT FOR YEAR 12/13 STUDENTS

Creative Writing Taster Session for Year 12-13 Students
9 Dec, 4-5pm – Free Online

RESEARCH SEMINAR

ENGLISH – POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH SEMINAR ‘Hear the sledges with the bells- Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells!’- Santa Poe Join the PGRS team on 10/12 for their PhD panel & ap-POE-priately festive Christmas Quiz! Sign up in teams of up to 4 now and watch here for more soon https://forms.gle/AtYYg3LJByYr1N

LISTINGS


‘Sh!t Actually’ is Backtually3-5 Dec – Rose Theatre and 12-23 at Home Manchester
QMUL Drama graduates Sh*t Theatre present their provocative and hilarious festive rework of Love Actually to prove ‘Love Actually is All Around’.

‘Best Alternative Christmas shows’ (Evening Standard).
‘No other alternative Christmas shows’ (Global Apocalypse)

Lived Religion and the Visual Arts: A Virtual Study Day4 Dec, Online, 2-4.30pm on ZoomA study day jointly hosted by the Centre for Religion and Literature in English (QMCRLE) and LERMA at Aix-Marseille Universitié.

Last Gasp WFH – Encore
6 Dec, Online – La Mama Experimental Theatre Club

Photo by Jingyu Lin for The New York Times

Written and performed by Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver of Split Britches, it is a series of verbal and physical essays that playfully dances through the dangerous intersections of permanence and impermanence, interdependence and care, knowledge and experience, narcissism and echoes.

Book here

“not just one of the 40-year-old company’s best pieces, but among the most evocative art to emerge from the Covid era” –Elisabeth Vincentelli, The New York Times

Rethinking Darkness Book Launch
10 Dec, Online, 3-5pm BST – Free
Our very own Martin Welton presents his work on Theatrical uses of darkness as part of this book launch.

WHAT MATTERS TO ME
10 Dec, Online, 5pm BST – Free Centring care and wellbeing in building online spaces.Prof. Pat Healy and Zoe Gumbs

Daniel Oliver: Weird Séance
16 Dec, 7 & 9pm Cambridge Junction

A special IRL socially distanced performance of Weird Séance by our very own Daniel Oliver.

QMUL Seminar Series 2020-2021: Crowds, Affects, Cities
Dr Ben Gook (History, University of Melbourne):
Collectivity and Affect in Crisis Times: Dancing in Berlin, 1989-2020
16 Dec, Online, 8pm BST – Free
Join via Zoom: Meeting ID: 813 2218 1471 / Passcode: 203341

“The Fall of the Berlin Wall launched a wave of ecstatic raving and clubbing across Berlin. That wave’s force has carried the city’s clubbing scene right through to today—although it has met an unforeseen break in this year of Covid restrictions. For thirty years, the thump of bass has never gone so silent. In this paper, I’ll put my previous work on ecstasy and melancholy in Berlin around 1989 in dialogue with recent developments, as clubbers, DJs and producers contend with a moment in which collectives and crowds have become sites of anxiety. I’ll consider the attempts to replicate the clubbing experience online, as well as the irrepressible raving energies that have seen illegal parties take place against stringent public health measures.”

News & Links
Alumni Profiles this month: Emily Rose Yates (English BA, 2013), Accessibility Consultant, Journalist & Speaker. Nathan Benitez (English BA), founder of afoodible.Creative Skills Academy: Rupert Dannreuther has run 3 online creative skills workshops and 2 in-person drop-ins for students, staff and friends. These will continue in semester 2 on Wednesday afternoons. Thanks to all who have attended so far.

Decolonise QMUL hosted an event for Black and Muslim students which featured Mohamed Mohamed from Black and Muslim in Britain (must-watch Youtube series), QMUL graduate Sawda On a Screen and poet Rakaya Esime Fetuga.

Diaspora Speaks has launched it’s first print issue showcasing work by students of colour. Co-founder Sawdah Bhaimiya (English BA) is interviewed here.

Pick it up from the Student Union Reception
Read the issue online

Hari Marini (Admin/Drama)’s performance company PartSuspended is in this #WIP online exhibition, curated by Queer Arts Projects which is on between 15 Oct 2020-15 Jan 2021.

See the exhibition

Michael McKinnie (Drama) gave a helpful session for first year drama students in the grand surroundings of the Great Hall in the People’s Palace.

Remembering Catherine Silverstone

DR CATHERINE SILVERSTONE: Head of the School of English and Drama and a longstanding colleague in the Department of Drama at Queen Mary University of London, tragically passed away on Sunday 4th October 2020 at King’s College Hospital. Our thoughts are with her partner Julia, her family in New Zealand and her friends. We all loved and will miss Catherine more than we can ever say.
Read more and leave a message of remembrance

LOCKDOWN SUPPORT: We would like to remind students and staff that there is emotional support for you at the college from Mental Health First Aiders to counselling services.

Read about support for students and staff

A SEASON OF BANGLA DRAMA: This year the biggest British-Bengali theatre goes online online with performances from east London as well as West Bengal, India and Sylhet Bangladesh.

See ‘A Season of Bangla Drama’ Programme

Online Events

TASTER EVENTS FOR YEAR 12/13 STUDENTS

English Taster – Brave New Words: Writing Across Worlds with Wasafiri
23 Nov, 5-6.30pm – Free Online

Drama Taster – QM Futures: The Colored Museum & Writing Race
1 and 8 Dec, 5-7pm – Free Online

QMUL Creative Writing Taster Session for Year 12-13 Students
9 Dec, 4-5pm – Free Online

LISTINGS

HM Online 2020: Performance and Political Economy
6 Nov, Online, 3-5pm BST – Free
Our very own Shane Boyle and Martin Young are on the panel on performance and political economy.

English Peer Assisted Study Support (PASS)
11 Nov, Online, 3pm BST – Free
The next virtual English PASS drop-in session for First Year students takes place on Wednesday at 3pm (Week 8) via Blackboard Collaborate. Follow this link to access the module page and join the webinars: https://qmplus.qmul.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=13405. Week 8’s webinar is an open session – feel free to drop-in at any point to ask for any advice relating to your assignments or modules.

WHAT MATTERS TO ME
11 Nov, Online, 5pm BST – Free Work and Utopia

Prof. Gerry Hanlon and Xavier De Sousa

Artists had been referred to by corporations as the ‘perfect worker’, finding enjoyment and drive in their work despite the often-long hours and low pay. Now we are moving to a world where we are being encouraged to retrain, up-skill and evolve. TAF have invited independent performance maker and curator Xavier de Sousa and Professor Gerard Hanlon from the Centre for Labour and Global Production at Queen Mary University of London to discuss, from their own viewpoints, the idea of WORK & UTOPIA. They will be working through ‘what matters’. To them, to you, and what we should be thinking about in building strategies for change in a post-COVID world.

Five Bodies
12 Nov, Online, 6.30-8.30pm BST – Free
Inspired by moments of unknowingness, invention and imagination, Five Bodies brings together some of the most outstanding British and international poets including our very own Nisha Ramayya to share experiences of contemporary poetry.

Poetry vs Colonialism Series – Being Human Festival
14-22 Nov, Online – Free

Explore the histories of gold, sugar, cotton and tobacco with poets, artists, academics & museums. Join the online workshops to discover how poets can help decolonise the world.

Last Gasp WFH
21 Nov, Online – La Mama Experimental Theatre Club

Last Gasp WFH, looks for ways we might catch our breath in these times of global uncertainty, considering our ‘last acts’, whether personal, political or environmental.

Written and performed by Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver of Split Britches, it is a series of verbal and physical essays that playfully dances through the dangerous intersections of permanence and impermanence, interdependence and care, knowledge and experience, narcissism and echoes.

News & Links

Alumni Profiles this month:

• Ama Badu (English BA, 2018), Digital Content Consultant at Faber & Faber
• Deanna Lyn Cook (English and History BA, 2018), MA Student and founder of The History Hotline podcast

Pamela Clemit (English) talks to Simon Reid-Henry about William Godwin, and historical enquiry in the form of editing.

Read the 5 Questions Interview

Caleb Femi (English alumni) has published his book Poor to wide acclaim and coverage from many publications including the Guardian, Hay Festival and New Statesman.

Genna Gardini (Drama PhD)has received the 2020 CASA award to finish my play, Many Scars.

She says: ‘I’ve been working on this thing for the past two years &it’s one of the biggest endeavours of my life – to write a play about MS that is just as strange as this disease is. Thank you, CASA! ‘

Huw Marsh (English)has his essay‘Burley Cross Postbox Theft’ as Comedy is featured in Nicola Barker: Critical Essays

Scott McCracken (English)’s edits The Oxford Edition of the Works of Dorothy Richardson, Volume IV

Cecilia Muratori (Research Fellow) is featured on History of Philosophy Books in 3 minutes with her book Renaissance Vegetarianism: The Philosophical Afterlives of Porphyry’s On Abstinence.


Rodent (Drama alum) appeared at the online, inclusive and outrageous Queer House Party on 30 October.

Morag Shiach (English) has published A ‘SECTOR DEAL’ AND A CREATIVE PRECARIAT : Shaping creative economy policy in the UK since 2010.

Welcome to our new and returning students and we can’t wait to meet new prospective students this Saturday at our open day.

Current Student FAQs | Book now for our Open Day this Saturday

LISA JARDINE ANNUAL ENGLISH LECTURE 2020: Booking is now open for 2020 lecture given by Ankhi Mukhejee: ‘Open, Closed, Interrupted City’ on 22 October 2020.

NATIONAL POETRY DAY: Our English with Creative Writing student Aisha Borja is reading her poetrytonight at 5pm.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: We are hosting an exclusive event with Helen Thomas and Professor Susheila Nasta. Follow us on Twitter to get alerts when booking is live. See below for an exclusive event by Peach x Diaspora Speaks student-led media.

Online Events

VIRTUAL OPEN DAY

QMUL Undergraduate Open Day
3 Oct, Online, 10.30am-6pm BST – Free

We are hosting live English and Drama sessions on studying with us on our inclusive and innovative courses from September 2021.

Register now

RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES

English Postgraduate Research Series

Watch the first Postgraduate Research Series Dr Yann Ryan talk below and follow on Twitter for details of the next events with Dr Jason Allen Paisant (Leeds) on 29 October.

QUORUM

Quorum is back! Autumn Virtual Quorum is excited to invite you to Dr @Kirsty Sedgman’s talk ‘How to Make the World Give a Sh*t About Theatre (Studies)’ See you on 22 October at 7:30pm, on Zoom. All welcome, request the link to our email.

Follow on Twitter for details

LISTINGS
SARU Visiting Practitioner Series: Nisha Ramayya
5 Oct, Online, 6-8pm BST – Free

In this session, Nisha Ramayya will introduce and read from her poetic sequence ‘Now Let’s Take a Listening Walk’, part of the ongoing project Crossing the Rackety Bridge Between Tantric Poetics and Black Study. These poems began during a residency at John Hansard Gallery, at the exhibition Many voices, all of them loved, curated by poet and academic Sarah Hayden.

Register here

Also check out Deep Deep Dream: Transmissions by Ignota Books is an experiment in the techniques of awakening and an invitation to touch the dreamworld, which features Nisha’s work from 14 Oct.

Peach × Diaspora Speaks Presents: On Black Voices
22 Oct, Online, 6-8pm BST – Free

Peach Magazine and Diaspora Speaks Magazine have collaborated on designing this the event: “On Black Voices”. It will be an open-mic night dedicated to Black History Month and showcasing the voices of Black artists!  

We’re currently looking for speakers for the event. If you want to join Diaspora Speaks and Peach Magazine on this night to share something powerful then sign up using the link: https://forms.gle/yjhMSqxy4VpRU8ju9.

We have time for a maximum of 10 speakers.  This will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis so make sure to sign up now! 
For any questions or queries contact: peachmagazine@qmsu.org or diasporaspeaks@qmsu.org

Instagram Live with Dominic Johnson
28 Oct, Online, 6.30-7.30pm BST – Free via Intellect Instagram

Our Head of Drama Dominic Johnson is in conversation with James Campbell at Intellect Books for its extended “Intellect Live Art” virtual conference.

News & Links

Brian Dillon (Creative Writing)’s Suppose a Sentence is out now from Fitzcarraldo Editions (and NYRB in the US). He’ll be doing some online events in the coming weeks: with Olivia Laing at the LRB Bookshop on 6 October; with Vinson Cunningham of The New Yorker for Community Bookstore in Brooklyn on 8 October; and with Stuart Kelly at Blackwells, Edinburgh on 15 October.

Jen Harvie (Drama) Catch TWO new episodes of Professor Jen Harvie’s podcast Stage Left, where she interviews performance makers on what they make and how they make it. New episodes are with FK Alexander who works with noise, pop culture, and delicate care in performances including VIOLENCE and (I Could Go on Singing) Over the Rainbow, and with Krishna Istha, discussing their stand-up comedy on trans identity, Beast.

The Stage Left back catalogue includes interviews with Split Britches (including SED’s own Professor Lois Weaver), Breach Theatre (including SED MA alumnus, director Billy Barrett), and SED alumni Sh!t Theatre (Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit).

Listen here

Lara Jakobsen (English with Creative Writing student) has launched SCHÄM Magazine, a magazine dedicated to exploring all things sex, gender, desire and taboo.

Gabriel Krauze (English alumnus) has been interviewed by Nathalie Grey (English alumna) about his writing, crime and time at Queen Mary.

Watch the video | Read the full interview

Places of Solitude The ‘Pathologies of Solitude’ project launches its first podcast series on 19 October, looking at places and experiences of solitude and how these have changed over the centuries. Topics range from gardens, cities and sanctums, to potentially perilous places like prison cells and even the human mind. The series also includes extended pop-out interviews with Shokoufeh Sakhi, a former political prisoner held in solitary confinement in Iran, and Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Listen here from 19 October

Matt Rubery (English) has been given a small British Academy grant for a project titled ‘Projected Books for Veterans with Disabilities’. This will be the first history of Projected Books, Inc., a manufacturer of vertical projectors and microfilmed books for the use of disabled veterans in hospital beds. By displaying a book’s pages on the ceiling, projected books made it possible for thousands of people with disabilities in the United States and other parts of the world to read during the 1940s-1970s. 

Liza Vallance (Drama graduate) CEO/Artistic Director at Studio 3 Arts Barking has raised £1.2 million for a makeover of the community centre  which includes glitter ball, flagpole and theatre made of straw.

Read more here


Lois Weaver Join AirSupply to connect, discuss, support and showcase new performance work. Email Lois to join.